Plymouth teen testifies dad shot him

BROCKTON – A West Plymouth teen stepped to the witness stand in Superior Court Tuesday and described a most unusual crime: getting shot by his own father.

Rich Harbert rharbert@wickedlocal.com @richharbertOCM

BROCKTON – A West Plymouth teen stepped to the witness stand in Superior Court Tuesday and described a most unusual crime: getting shot by his own father.

Shawn Panepinto, 18, told jurors his estranged father, Richard, was waiting for him when he arrived home from basketball practice one cold Tuesday night more than three years ago.

Shawn Panepinto was heading to the back door with two backpacks and a dinner from Wendy’s on Jan. 17, 2012, when his father called to him from his car in the driveway.

The elder Panepinto, who had been living in New Hampshire since his divorce months earlier, had two questions for his son: “Why are you doing this to me? Why is your mother doing this to me?”

Shawn Panepinto said he told his father he didn’t know what he was talking about and turned to go into the house. That’s when he heard a loud noise “like a firework” and felt wind on his right side.

Moments later Richard Panepinto allegedly emerged from his car with a gun in his hand. As his son now asked why, the father allegedly pointed the revolver at the boy’s lower body and fired.

“I felt a burning sensation in my kidney area, in my left side,” Shawn Panepinto told jurors, describing a ringing noise in his ears as things went blurry.

He collapsed against the car and remembered seeing his father collapsed nearby. Prosecutors say the elder Panepinto shot himself after shooting his son.

The dramatic testimony highlighted the first day of Richard Panepinto’s trial on charges including armed assault with intent to murder and aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He also faces a handful of weapons charges.

Prosecutors allege Richard Panepinto tried to kill his son as an act of revenge against the boy’s mother. Though once very close, father and son had become estranged in the years before the shooting and Shawn was considered expendable, Assistant District Attorney Russell Eonas said in his opening arguments.

Eonas said Richard Panepinto never expected to face judgment for this shooting. He turned the gun to his chest and fired after shooting his son, but both father and son survived their injuries.

Defense attorney Jason Benzaken said in his opening statement that many facts in the case were not in dispute and acknowledged that much of the testament would be difficult to hear, especially for parents on the jury.

But Benzaken maintained his client’s innocence, saying the elder Panepinto was suffering from paranoid delusions and job-related brain injuries and was not in his right mind on Jan. 17, 2012, or much of the time leading up to the shooting.

Richard Panepinto has been in custody since the shooting: for months at a secure hospital and ever since in jail.

His son spent only two weeks in the hospital but suffered serious kidney and colon injuries that required emergency surgery in Boston and left him with permanent scars.

Shawn Panepinto used a marker to circle the exit and entrance wounds in photos of his stomach and back. He also pointed out corresponding holes in his bloody red T-shirt and holes in his backpack and books.

He used a knitting needle to show the hole through his book, poking it along a trajectory that suggested a first shot missing him just to his right.

The shooting came after a long holiday weekend that saw Richard Panepinto spending several nights at his wife and son’s home in West Plymouth.

Shawn Panepinto said his father was extremely emotional over the course of the weekend, crying frequently as he described his desire to reunite his family.

Shawn Panepinto said he repeatedly told his father it was not his (the boy’s) fault. The weekend ended badly, he said, when his mother told Panepinto it was time for him to go home.

The trial resumes Thursday before Judge Richard Chin. Testimony is expected to extend into next week.

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